CULTURE & COMMUNITY
HERITAGE
CANARY ISLANDS
By Susan Yerkes
TENERIFE, CANARY ISLANDS, 1730—ON THIS SMALL ISLAND JUST OFF AFRICA’S NORTHWEST COAST, 25 PIONEER FAMILIES BOARDED A SMALL, RICKETY WOODEN SAILING SHIP AND BEGAN A LONG, ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO TEXAS. THEY SOUGHT A FRESH START IN THE NEW WORLD, FAR FROM THE DROUGHT AND VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS THAT WERE DEVASTATING THEIR HOMELANDS. THESE WERE NO ORDINARY IMMIGRANTS. THEY WERE OFFICIAL COLONISTS, COMMISSIONED BY THE KING OF SPAIN TO FORM THE FIRST CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN TEXAS, IN SAN ANTONIO. BY SENDING WORKING FAMILIES, THE SPANISH KING AIMED TO FIRM UP HIS CLAIM TO A SWATH OF THE SOUTHWEST, AT A TIME WHEN FRENCH ADVENTURERS WERE COMPETING FOR NEW TERRITORY. The story of these tenacious immigrants is not widely known. But the Canary Islands Descendants Association of San Antonio is working hard to tell it. The islanders’ trip was grueling—months at sea, followed by an 1,100mile trek on foot from Veracruz to San Antonio. In March of 1731, the travelers—now 56 of them, in 16 families—finally reached their destination—a loose settlement around a Spanish presidio and a Franciscan mission. It is easy to imagine the relief the weary travelers felt when they finally arrived. The soldiers at the presidio supplied them with “all the underclothes, the outer clothes, and sleeping clothes, arms, horses, munitions, and all the corresponding equipment which they have already received, together with two months advanced wages to each one of the fifty-six persons,” as promised by the king. They began to build simple houses and plant crops, and on August 1, 1731, they elected an alcalde (mayor), a sheriff, city secretary and a land 28 RIO Magazine
commissioner—the first official officials of the town they named the Villa of San Fernando, which would become San Antonio. For decades, the isleños would wield exclusive political power in the new town. In 1738 they laid the cornerstone of their church, now San Fernando Cathedral, and their surveyors marked off Plaza de las Islas (Main Plaza) and a set of radiating streets where government buildings, stores and individual housing would be built. The whole plaza was locked in a grid, forming a cross, with the church as a center. You can still see the mark of the center of the city in its floor. “When you look at downtown, the Plaza de Armas at City Hall, the Plaza de las Islas, San Fernando Cathedral—the Canary Islanders had a major impact,” said Freddie Bustillo, president of the Canary Islands Descendants Association of San Antonio. “When you go down a list of San Antonio mayors, the first 25 or 30 of them were either Canary Islanders or their descendants.” The civic connection continues in lively exchanges of business, culture and tourism between San Antonio and thesanantonioriverwalk.com
